


Take me to church (I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies)

by The_Wilds_Musings (HarryJamesPeralta)



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Comfort, F/F, Guilt, Hurt, Religious Conflict, Sad religious angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29565648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarryJamesPeralta/pseuds/The_Wilds_Musings
Summary: After kissing Toni Shelby can only see Becca, and can only hear the words of her father echoing in her mind, "We just don't want you to be alone."orShelby is going through some religious angst.
Relationships: Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Take me to church (I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies)

Shelby Goodkind was the picture-perfect daughter.Straight hair, straight A’s, straight forward.She did real, she did Jesus, and she did pageants.She wouldn’t _ever_ disappoint her father again.Her fingers grazed the cross necklace around her neck and she whispers, begging her Lord for freedom from the temptation.Tears prick behind her eyes and she curls her arms around her knees.Being out here, with these girls, she couldn’t stop herself from looking, but she thought could stop herself from acting.

A tear slips down her cheek and she begs, silently, for forgiveness.

She made it fifteen days, fifteen fucking days.Toni Shalifoe had been under her skin since the moment she stepped foot on that plane.Her damned perfect smile was the first thing that Shelby noticed, and then she couldn’t stop noticing, everything, about Toni. 

The second thing she noticed was how her jaw clenched minutes before she reacted angrily like she was trying so hard to hold her tongue. 

Then she noticed the way she was with Marty, protective, warm, kind.She begged herself to stay on Toni’s bad side.Sincerely begged.For fifteen days.She even purposefully told everyone in the group that she was allowed to be skeeved out by her _way of life_ as if she wasn’t fucking sitting alone, begging herself to not look at her, or any girl, in that way. 

She can still feel Toni’s hands on her waist.It’s been hours since she launched herself at Toni and pressed her lips to hers as hard and desperately as she could.Toni responds in exactly the way Shelby didn’t want.She wanted Toni to shove her, yell at her, throw her away, it’s no less than she deserved.But fucking Toni Shalifoe kissed her back, her hands pulled at her waist, it was everything she could have wanted, no.She shook the thought out of her head, her fingers grasped the cross necklace as tears slipped from her eyes.

She can hear her daddy’s voice clearly in her head and see him on his bike in front of their riding group, “Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil.” As he tells them to pedal harder as if they can ride away from the temptation if they just pedal hard enough.She can hear his voice ringing throughout their home as she witnesses Kyle curling in on himself as he quotes from Corinthians 6:18 “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.”And she can see Kyle’s momma crying and his daddy resting a hand on his shoulder. 

What she doesn’t hear is Leah sitting down beside her, so lost in her own head.She doesn’t even notice Leah until the girl wraps her arms around Shelby’s shaking body, her body wracked with silent sobs.Leah doesn’t say anything to her, just holds her until she’s all cried out, and when she’s done crying Leah doesn’t say anything either.Shelby thanks her lucky stars that Leah doesn’t ask her what’s wrong, because she’s not sure if she can handle talking about her temptations, about _Becca_ and the guilt she’s felt every single day of the past year. 

Leah slips away from her after her sobs stop, the sun is sinking below the horizon and she rejoins the group.None of them say much of anything to her.They hate her, but they’ll never hate her as much as she hates herself. 

It’s been almost twelve hours since temptation had swallowed her whole and spit her out and that’s all she can think about is Becca, **Becca** , _Becca,_ Becca, Becca.How the last thing she said to her literal best friend was that she was asking to be sexually assaulted, how this was her fault, how they couldn’t be friends anymore.She’s exhausted.Mentally, physically, emotionally, she doesn’t even know how she manages to drag her body from the wet sand to take a sip of water, she’s so dehydrated, her head hurts so badly she can barely move.Her eyes meet Toni’s, Toni doesn’t say a word, but her eyes look concerned and Shelby can’t maintain eye contact, she looks away, her fingers on her necklace she can still hear her dad.She whispers, silently mouthing the words of Matthew: 26:41 _Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak._

She closes her eyes and sees Becca’s surprised eyes after she presses a firm kiss to her lips and when she snaps her eyes open Dot is boring into her skull and she can’t breathe.She excuses herself and walks along the edge of the ocean relishing the feeling of the sand disappearing beneath her feet; the ocean swallowing her one grain of sand at a time; the water drawing her feet forward.She doesn’t even notice that she’s walking forward until she’s standing hip-deep in the water and relishing every wave that washes over her until it’s Nora pulling her from the water and the sun is setting and she hasn’t done anything except think about Becca, and Toni, and Becca again. 

She shivers next to the fire until Fatin takes pity on her and hands her a sweater.Martha forces water into her hands and she drinks, she can feel the liquid burning its way down her dry throat as if it’s alcohol rather than water.Tonight is the most silent any of them have been sitting around a fire, but they have nothing to say, rescue should have been here by now, they can all hear it, but only one voice says anything.It’s Rachel, she sounds so scared and that scares Shelby more than anything.

“We’re going to die out here,” her voice is raspy, barely above a whisper, they all can feel the gravity of Rachel’s words, but no one responds.

Shelby doesn't sleep for three days, every time she closes her eyes she can see Becca’s surprised look, hear her voice whispering, “I see you,” she can see the love in her eyes fade to hurt and her eyes fill with tears before she runs away.She knows she’s the last person that ever talked to Becca and that it was her hate-filled words that killed her.She will _never_ forgive herself. 

When she doesn’t hear Becca she hears her dad’s harsh voice telling her she’ll be alone forever, no one will love her, she’ll go to hell, to pedal her way past temptation.All of it.She can hear her mom tell her she’s going on a trip with other girls who’re struggling and she can feel her heart clenching when the first person she sees on the plane is Toni and she’s so obviously gay and the second person she sees is Rachel and this is exactly her worst fear.Conversion therapy. 

For three entire days, she tortures herself to the brink of insanity and exhaustion.On their twentieth day there she snaps out of it.Clarity like never before has washed over her.This was never conversion therapy.This was a fucking accident and she’s stuck here with these girls, one of whom she’s already sinned for.She touches her cross necklace and drops it almost immediately as if it burns her, maybe it does, she doesn’t know.She sits with Leah for three hours and they trade stories.

“I killed my best friend,” her voice comes out so softly she isn’t even sure if it's what she’s saying, Leah doesn’t react strongly, but gestures for her to continue.She tells her everything.To Leah’s credit, she doesn’t say a fucking word.“Well, maybe I didn’t kill her, but she killed herself because of me,” Shelby continues, words pouring out of her mouth as she tells Leah about how she’s the one who kissed Becca, how she’d been in love with her since Freshman year and how Becca never even looked at her with hate in her eyes, just honest to god surprise.She admits while tears that she didn’t know she had left leak down her cheeks that the last thing she told Becca was that she deserved what she got and that the last thing Becca did was look so scared, and so hurt before she walked away.To Leah’s credit, she’s a great listener and when Shelby finishes speaking and her tears have dried Leah speaks slowly, but so surely not even Shelby can doubt her words.

“You didn’t kill her Shelby,” and even though Shelby doesn’t believe her in the slightest and she still feels so fucking guilty she’s comforted.Leah doesn’t try to out sad her, but she admits that her thing with Jeff has her so fucked up and she cries into Shelby’s shoulder about how she thought he loved her, but he fucking used her and Shelby tries to calm her, to hold her, to show her she cares, but the most she does is awkwardly pat Leah’s shoulder as her arm is wrapped around her.Leah seems lighter though when they’re done talking, and if she’s honest with herself, she feels lighter too, but just enough to continue on through the unbearable pain. 

She feels every word of her father cutting into her on the twenty-first day. _“We just don’t want you to be alone_.” And she feels so fucking sad for him, that he thinks like that, that he made her think like that.That anyone on God’s beautiful earth has been made to feel like that.By now she’s more angry than confused, and sadder for him than for her, her eyes watch Toni’s every move, and every time they make eye contact fucking Toni Shalifoe smiles at her.Shelby fists her hands in her own hair when she looks down at the sand, she whispers to herself out of earshot that she needs to make things right.She doesn’t know if she means between her and her daddy, her and Toni, or her and God himself, but she knows she has to fix things. 

The next day when Toni invites her to go foraging in the forest and Marti splits from them she’s entirely too on edge, her heart races every time Toni glances over her shoulder, every time their eyes meet, every time they walk too closely and their fingertips brush and Shelby knows its got to be driving Toni just as crazy, but she seems unfazed.Untortured.At peace.Shelby wishes she could be her, for just a minute, to experience the freedom of not caring what everyone else around them thinks.

When Toni’s thumb brushes juice from the Lychee from her cheek her heart stops dead in her chest, or at least it feels that way, their words die on their lips and Shelby can’t look away.Toni was one hundred percent right when she said that Shelby was free here, and so as quickly as she can force herself she leans in, its tentative, slow, unhurried, nervous.Her fingers feel the warmth of Toni before she makes contact with her jaw and she can smell the juice of the lychees on her lips before they meet.Shelby can feel herself getting carried away, she doesn’t care, she’s free.

Toni pulls away, Shelby is confused, slightly hurt, until Toni asks her, “are you sure?”And she is sure.She’s never been more sure about anything in her life than in this moment.She has never needed anything more than in this moment.Her words come out shakier than she intended.

“I’m sure,” but Toni doesn’t move forward like she knows Shelby needs to move at her own pace and when their lips fit together again Shelby sets the pace, and it’s Shelby who makes the first moves, and when they lay beneath the stars, Toni points out constellations and tells her the story of Perseus and Andromeda and pointing out stars, and Shelby can’t stop her mind from thinking if this is what being alone is like, maybe being alone ain’t so bad.


End file.
